Genre Character of the Week: R

Taking a short break from school-related texts, I spent the long weekend (Gee I love living in Alberta!) checking out the Young Adult (YA) novel Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion. Going into the book here is what I knew – it was supposed to be some sort of zombie love story, it is being turned into a film that will be released in 2013, and it is clearly being marketed as something of interest for fans of the Twilight books and film franchise. Now you know why I might not have been excited to check it out.

On the positive side, I’d already had a really great experience of Zombie-themed YA fiction in Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth series, so I knew the topic could be covered in an effective way for younger readers and as I spend each day looking at my zombie calendar whenever I want to remember the date, I’ve had zombies on my brain (pun intended). But after reading the book I’ve got to say it’s success comes down to its main character, and our genre character of the week, R.

Structured in a lot of ways like YA animal based fiction (think The Incredible Journey or Warhorse), the novel is narrated and told from the point of view of a zombie named R. Like all zombies he can no longer remember his name, but the initial has stuck, although he doesn’t speak, it is through his strangely eloquent prose that we see a zombie apocalypse from the other side.

R’s world is a grim one indeed, but he does have occasional flashes of memory, hints of what his life may have been before. One thing I loved about the book is that as we are seeing everything through his eyes, we don’t actually know how old he is, he could be anywhere from a teen through to a man in his fifties so the character is easy to empathize with from my 35-year-old point of view. In a way it’ll be a shame that his age and appearance will be locked down in the upcoming film to that of 22-year-old actor Nicholas Hoult (who I liked in X-Men First Class and loved in the BBC series Skins) as it may distance the emotional connection for older readers like me.

The strange thing about zombies has often been how much they look like us, and sometimes even act like us, when it is also clear that there really isn’t anyone home, just echoes of a previous existence. R made me think differently about that – and that’s about the best comment I can make about the character and the book.

Definitely worth checking out.

Twilight of Bookmonkey: Day Thirteen

Today I can honestly say that at least one day of my month of Twilight has not been for naught (originally I was going to say it had not been in vain, but I have a pretty low tolerance for puns in my blog). While spending my day at work yesterday, I had the soundtrack for the first Twilight movie playing in the background and I’ve got to say it is pretty great.

As I said in my last post, I’m a pretty big MUSE fan (I first came across them when my wife played their tune Take a Bow for me about half a year before it came out in the Watchmen trailer) and saw them in concert earlier this year, so the fact that the album starts with one of their songs is great. The rest of the album moves between poppy tunes, slow tunes and even a song I started humming along with that turned out to have been sung by Twilight star Robert Pattinson – yup, that dude can sing.

If you take nothing else from my blogs this month, at the very least take the time to check out the soundtracks, which I’ve heard only get better and better.

Book-wise, I’m nearing the end of the first part of Breaking Dawn, so the end is in sight. The end of Eclipse let me know who the heck Bree Tanner is, and as her appearance happens to be one of the scariest/saddest parts of the series so far I can honestly say I’m kind of looking forward to the final novella in the series as well.

Twilight of Bookmonkey: Day Eleven

Good morning and Happy Canadian Thanksgiving everyone! Rather than playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 like I have been in the early weekend mornings, I spent the last two hours watching the motion picture Twilight, and I did it all for you.

Book-wise I've just finished Eclipse, which I believe was the latest book out before the film release. Considering I have seen the movie before (I watched it with my then-11-year-old daughter Kaia when it first came out), I'll give you my impressions, both good and bad, having now read the source material.

The Good:

1) I really liked both Billy Burke (who played Bella's dad Charlie) and Cam Gigandet (who played the evil James). The leads were better than I remembered, but as both characters take themselves very seriously, they are easily mocked.

2) The music is pretty great (I'm talking about the soundtrack rather than the score), I've actually seen MUSE in concert and a lot of the other tunes were pretty catchy. I'll be looking at the soundtrack in its own post later this week.

3)The two highlights of the film for me were the baseball scene and the end fight (which thankfully appeared in the movie rather than being reported after the fact, like in the book). The cut scenes of the evil vampires getting closer did build tension in a way the book doesn't until the baseball game. Also the author cameo was cute, as was the (unintentional) reference to Peter Facinelli's work in the TV series Nurse Jackie (which is really REALLY good).

The Bad

1) The effects are pretty weak - with the exception of the fight scene at the end, the vampire effects look pretty rushed.

2) The movie glossed over evil vampire James' back story, specifically his thwarted hunt of Alice (one of the Cullens), that made his hunt for Bella significantly more understandable in the novel.

3) The Score. I actually purchase a lot of scores for films (the instrumental music played in the background of films), so I always have an ear out for music I might want to pick up. It may have been due to the higher quality of the songs throughout, but I just found the score was lacking, which definitely took away from my enjoyment of the film.

In the end, the movie was, like the novel, OK. I wouldn't own it (I watched my now 13-year-old daughter's copy). Like any number of films based on young adult books it appealed to its target audience, of which I am not. I've seen better, I've seen worse.

Next I'm on to Breaking Dawn.

Twilight of Bookmonkey: Day Eight

For the last two and a half books (I’m working my way through Eclipse now), I’ve been pretty concerned that this horror series wouldn’t have anything, you know, horrific in it. Thankfully I was wrong.

In the twenty-first chapter of New Moon, something scary actually happens! Vampires actually eat a tour group of people, and although it is not described in gory detail (Bella had left the room it happened in) she could still hear the screams! Horray, the Horror series I’ve dedicated the month of October to reading actually had something scary in it!

In the end I was less than enthused with New Moon, as I said back on Wednesday, the majority of the book went nowhere and as much as I like young Jacob (I guess I’m on Team Jacob) for attempting to be best friends with a girl he’d like to be dating, the fact that Bella knowingly uses his affection to make herself feel better just made me wonder why exactly anyone likes her character.

So far Eclipse is a little better – stuff is happening, and a significant body count in nearby Seattle seems to be heading towards some sort of payoff. I do find it funny that Bella hasn’t once considered that after she becomes a vampire, she won’t want to be around Jacob at all (for the record this dynamic was handled much more effectively in Canadian author Tanya Huff’s Victoria Nelson series). Also it’s funny that after Edward sees how upset Jacob is, he tells Bella not to feel bad as she didn’t do anything wrong (making him either ignorant, insane or without morals – oh wait, maybe Bella is simply lying to him about her behaviour in the previous book)

Anyway, the third book is better than the second, which wasn’t as good as the first.

This weekend – the first movie.

Twilight of Bookmonkey: Day Six

Currently I’m just over 320 pages into New Moon. Unlike the first book, which I consider a pretty okay Young Adult supernatural romance novel, this book is pretty weak.

Basically Edward, who spent the entire first book saying “I’m no good for you baby, maybe I should go...” finally makes good on his promise and leaves. After this we are left with Bella whining unendingly about the “hole in her chest” that was torn out when Edward left. She doesn’t do anything for months... literally, there is a chunk of the book with chapter headings and nothing else, explaining that as time went by nothing happened.

You know, I don’t mind reading books where very little happens, but absolutely nothing? And worse yet, nothing narrated by an incredibly self-involved teenaged girl. I’m doing my best to give this series a fair shake, but this book is really testing me.

Here are my main problems so far

1) Bella is not scared of her boyfriend. The fact that Bella has absolutely no fear of Edward or any other member of his family has effectively de-fanged these vampires. If they don’t scare a teenaged girl, they can’t really be that scary. (I will note that if Bella was scared of Edward and loved him anyway the book would have unfortunate parallels to Domestic Violence so I don’t have a better solution for this.)

2) Not a lot is happening in book two – Bella is sad, and hundreds of pages go by while she acts like a jerk to everyone around her.

3) There are no “on-screen” fight scenes. Both the fight between James and the Cullens in Twilight and the fight between Laurent and the Werewolves in New Moon happen away from our narrator so we only hear about them after the fact.

Here is what I like so far

1) Charlie Swan. Bella’s dad and the Chief of police in the town of Forks seems like a pretty cool guy working with a very difficult daughter. I wish I could bake the guy a cake and say, Don’t worry man, some of us see how great a Dad you are.

Coming up this weekend, I start Eclipse and check out the first movie – Horay!

Twilight of Bookmonkey: Day Four

330 pages. So far it kind of feels like the beginning of a marathon - right now I'm feeling pretty good, the series doesn't feel as bad (or as amazing) as some people say, and I'm thinking, "Sure I can do this - no problem!"

Impressions so far - the book is just kind of okay. I've read a lot of Young Adult (YA) books over the years and although this isn't the best (see Harry Potter or Percy Jackson) it is definitely not one of the worst. I'd plunk it down in the middle. Right now Edward has just introduced Bella to his family and has told her how old both he and his creator actually are (105 and 375 respectively).

There is no Team Edward vs. Team Jacob yet (although Jacob is in the book he is described as a little kid), but I suppose there could be a Team Edward vs. Team Mike Newton, as Mike is a nice guy who Bella describes as the friendliest person she's met in this new town and he seems to like her a lot.

So far I give the book a "Pretty Good" rating. It's not the best, but if you're looking for YA books about vampires, it seems okay.

Later this week - the first movie and then on to New Moon!

Twilight of Bookmonkey: Day One

All right, here goes... Chapter One.

“My Mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down.” As far as a first sentence goes, it does the job – I know the story will be from a first person perspective, that the narrator is going on a trip, probably without her mother, and that wherever she is leaving from has a nice enough climate to drive with the windows down.

The start of a new series is always pretty exciting to me, even though it would be fair to say I have a number of preconceived notions regarding this particular series. I guess I should start things off by stating them:

1) I’ve never read any of these books before, but I did see the first movie in theatres when it came out (I’ve always told my kids that I would pay for their movie tickets if they read the source material first).

2) I have not been living under a rock for the last five years, I’m aware of the series, it’s popularity and many of the major plot points

3) Both of my kids went through phases where they liked the series, and then abruptly decided they didn’t like it any more (also they both seemed to hate the main character from the start)

4) My wife is a saint for putting up with me focusing on the Twilight Saga for the next month

As I’m only on the first page so far, I don’t have much else to say. Thanks to my BFF Mike for the new “Wisdom of Bookmonkey” banner art.

Oh yeah, obviously the Twilight-Saga based posts throughout the following month are my own opinion, biased by my experience and taste, but I will do my best to give the series a fair shake.

Alright, on to sentence #2... (And yes I know that the first sentence was technically either the Bible quote or the bit in the preface about dying, but I had more to say about the beginning of Chapter One.) and look at that – she was from Arizona – I called it!

Odds and Ends

Hi everyone, as I'm now two days away from my month-long journey through the Twilight Saga I have a few quick things I'd like to say:

1) Sorry I didn't get a First Impressions: No Ordinary Family post done - I had book club last night and therefore no time to check out the pilot. I'll try to do a review of the first five episodes once I'm back to normal in November.

2) As one of my book clubs is doing Twilight for our October selection, I'll also be reading the novella The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner as I now will have the space to read another book (I read 6 or 7 a month).

3) Although I will read all of the Twilight books and check out all three current soundtracks, I may have difficulty seeing the movie Eclipse - It's not on DVD yet, so I'm basically hoping I can find it at one of the cheap theatres in my area.

Have a great day everybody.

Things I've noticed: Thinking about a month of Twilight is scary

Dear Readers:

By this time next week I'll be working on a month's worth of posts focusing on the Twilight Series. Yup, almost 2500 pages, three movies, three soundtracks, two teams, and millions of screaming Twi-hards have caught my attention, causing me to devote a month to a series of books about vampires that glitter.

I'm hoping to keep to the same schedule I usually blog, but for the entire month of October I will be focusing on one of the most popular horror series of all time, and to be fair, one of the ones that scares me the most (for example, the fact that this series is considered horror scares me).

I'll do my best to give the series an honest look, from the point of view of a father of two teenaged girls who have read or are reading all of the books, as well as from the point of view of a fan of both horror and vampire-specific fiction.

If you don't like Twilight, and the idea of reading about me reading it over a month makes you want to stop visiting my blog, I understand. Just keep two things in mind:

1) If you read my blog throughout October you will become much more knowledgeable about the world of Twilight.

2) As of November I'll be back to my regular style post (first up, a review of the AMC series The Walking Dead - which premieres on Halloween)

For those of you brave enough to enter this frightening world with me - Thanks!

Your pal,

Bookmonkey

You owe it to yourself #8: Keeping up to date

Over the past two months I've said a lot about reading your current favourite genre; focusing on award winners, classics, and trying to define exactly what your favourite genre are. This week I'm going to switch from the old to the new. I'm talking about the currently best selling books in your genre.

If you are well known among your friends and co-workers as "The Fantasy Guy" or "The Comic Book Guy" or even "The Non-Fiction Guy" it wouldn't hurt for you to keep an eye on one of the many best-sellers lists available on line for books you should be reading.

Being a Canadian, my first stop is The Globe & Mail best-sellers list. As I run a small library I like to think that I keep up-to-date on what my fellow Canadians are reading. Next I go to The New York Times best-sellers list. I like the fact that my neighbours to the South also keep track of the best-selling graphic novels each week. For a more specific comic list I check out the best-sellers at Diamond Distributors.

I'm not saying that you should limit yourself to only reading best-sellers, just like you shouldn't limit yourself to only reading one author or one genre; what I am saying is that you should be aware of the current big stuff in your genre of choice. I'm a huge horror fan, it would be silly for my friends to think I was unaware of the entire Saw series or the Twilight books - actually I didn't like either of them - I like my horror movies with less torture-porn and my vampire books with more, you know, VAMPIRES in them.

Basically, if your friends and co-workers are reading about your genre in the paper or online, you owe it to yourself to know what they are talking about, even if the stuff isn't exactly your favourite part of the genre. Otherwise you quickly fall out of the loop and are no longer seen as "The Horror Guy" and are instead simply seen as "That guy who says he likes horror but doesn't even know what Twilight is about."

You Owe it to Yourself

You know what? I hate it when people tell me that they love vampire movies.

Especially when they don't mean it. Here's the thing, I LOVE Vampire movies, everything from the classic (Nosferatu), to the cheesy (Vamp), to the amazing but flawed (I Still say Near Dark is the best Vampire film you will ever see, IF you leave 20 minutes before the end), to the perfect (Let the Right One in), so when someone says that they are a Vampire fan I think we've got a lot in common.

But 9 times out of 10 what they mean to say is that they are a Twilight fan.

Now here's the thing, I've seen Twilight, and even though it has some pretty big flaws (They can't go out into sunlight because they SHINE!?!), I can understand that it is pretty popular right now.

So here is what I want all you Twilight fans to do:

Say that you are a HUGE Twilight fan. And you know what? if by HUGE Twilight fan you mean a huge Robert Pattinson fan, than say you area HUGE Robert Pattinson fan.

I won't be mad, honest, the guy is a teen idol in that emaciated, can't be bothered to do his hair and probably gets called "Miss" or "Young Lady" a lot, kind of way that is popular these days.

What I will get mad at is if you say you love Vampire movies when you don't really.

Look, it's the same thing as saying you're a huge fantasy fan because you own Lord of the Rings on DVD and still have all your old Dragonlance books from high school. If you haven't read any new fantasy written in the last five years, maybe it is better for you to say you are a big fantasy movie or classic Dragonlance fan.

In the end, here is what I want you to do. I want all of you to be the best fans of whatever you like that you can be. If that means Robert Pattinson, then fine, learn about the guy, check of the movie Little Ashes, or even dust off your Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire DVD. If you're a die-hard Dragonlance fan, pull those books down from your closet and give them another look, or maybe go to the use-book stores and pick up one of the more than 50 new Dragonlance tiles that have been published since 2000.

In the end what it comes down to is a little bit of effort - Right now my favourite show is Dexter - I'm a Dexter fan, but when I tell people that, I explain that I mean I'm a fan of the show - I've never gotten around to reading the novels, and you know what, as long as I'm clear about what I'm a fan of, that's alright by me.

Because in the end, you don't own your fan status to me, or your friends, or even to Robert Pattinson; in the end you owe it to yourself.